


Hi, Honey!

by EchoEquinox



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4, Kingdom Hearts
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Sora did all the minutemen quests but none of the main quests LMAO, Trans Female Character, Trans Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 05:56:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19847014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoEquinox/pseuds/EchoEquinox
Summary: The holotape was practically broken with how many times Sora's replayed it. His voice was... comforting, even after everything that's happened.





	Hi, Honey!

**Author's Note:**

> I've been playing a ton of Fallout, and started a HEAVILY modded playthrough with my trans girl Sora and Riku as Nate. Neither of them are white (they lived on an ISLAND of course they're dark-skinned) and Sora's also a trans girl, both because I said so and because it works easiest in Fallout's engine.

“ _ Oops-! No, don’t- don’t touch that, just talk here, yeah, right there. Can you say ‘hi mommy’? _ ” the man laughed, giving a small cheer as the baby he was cooing at made a happy burble. She felt tears sting her eyes, wiping them dry and resting her head back down against the table, staring at the soft green glow of the Pip-Boy. “ _ Hey, honey. Listen… I don’t think Shaun and I need to tell you how great of a mother you are, but we’re going to anyway. Honey, you are… so, so strong. And beautiful, and resilient, and- I guess that’s just strong, huh? _ ” He laughed, and there was noises of adjusting the machine. “ _ No way to rewind and edit that out,. Sorry, hun, you’ll just have to deal with my slip ups. I’m sure I’m gonna make a lot. _

_ Things are going to be hard, coming up. I know it’s gonna be a big change, me going back to civilian life, you shaking the dust off your social work degree. But I KNOW you, Sora. I know how strong, and capable, and adaptable you are. This change isn’t even going to phase you. Especially since I’ll be there at your side the whole way. We’ll get through this together. I love you, honey. _ ” Riku paused, then laughed. “ _ Can you say ‘bye mommy’? Say bye bye! _ ” The baby gave a happy hiccuping laugh and Riku chuckled. “ _ Bye, honey. _ ” And the holotape clicked off.

And like the hundreds of times she’d listened to it before, she started to cry. She rested her forehead against the ruined desk, her frame shaking with each hard sob, tugging the coat tighter around herself. She didn’t  _ feel _ strong. She felt weak, and so, so small. Riku had been her strength, her  _ light _ . Marrying him had been one of the happiest days of her life. She felt her thumb move to her wedding ring, the other resting in her pocket. 

Barring marrying Riku, the OTHER happiest day of her life had been adopting Shaun. That cool, breezy April morning, when they’d gotten the call that the paperwork had finally gone through, and - despite the hangups that were the US government’s litigation on the two, being queer AND brown - they had held their baby boy in their arms and Sora bawled for hours. Riku liked to joke that the baby cried less than she did, and he was probably right. 

And then… the bombs dropped. She’d been terrified, clinging to Riku, Shaun between them. They’d run for the vault, stepping onto that platform as it dropped into the earth, almost knocked off their feet by the shockwave from a nuclear bomb dropping not far to the south. They could see the mushroom cloud. The sight had been so bright she thought she’d go blind. 

But she didn’t. And they didn’t die. The vault sealed up, and they descended into the darkness. And despite her terror, the gripping fear of society being wiped away, she was… at peace. She could do this, she could live in an underground shelter. She had Riku, and Shaun. They’d walked together, shaken but confident, still cracking jokes all the way up to the pods. “Decontamination pods”. She had stepped in, Riku into the one across from her, cradling Shaun to his chest. He had looked across the distance, catching her attention and grinning. “I love you.” Had he known? Did he know something horrible was about to happen? How could he have? 

But she had watched, sealed in her cryostasis pod, as a man with a scarred face and a bald head opened Riku’s pod. He took Shaun and… It was so hard to focus on the details. She felt so incredibly sad, and hurt. He shot him. The man shot Riku. He killed Riku, sealing him up inside the pod and refreezing the two, and when Sora got out, desperately clawing at the latch to open Riku’s pod, he had already died. 

The second she found a corpse with clothes that fit her, she burned the vault suit. She’d blow the whole damn vault up if she could. Never again. 

She jerked up with a yelp at the soft knock at her doorframe. 

“Come in-” she started, voice cracking before clearing her throat, forcing it to sound more commanding and normal: “Come in.” Preston chuckled as he entered the bedroom, and she relaxed, giving him a soft smile. “Hey, Preston. What’s up?” Then, she stiffened. “Is- is something wrong?”

“Oh, no, nothing’s up,” he laughed. “Though… I actually was about to ask YOU that same question.”

“Me?” she scoffed. “When is anything ever wrong with ME, Preston?” He gave her a flat look and she deflated a bit. “I’m… I mean, why do you ask?”

“Well… the walls may not be LITERALLY thin,” he started, knocking at the heavy brickwork. “But there’s enough gaps that it’s pretty easy to hear from the next room.” 

“Oh,” she replied, voice small. “How much did you hear?”

“Just that you were listening to a holotape and… crying a lot,” he frowned, rubbing his arm. “I just wanted to say, whatever is going on, you can always talk to me, General.”

“Stop calling me General,” she groaned, moving to her bed and flopping onto it. 

“You’re wearing the general’s uniform,” he pointed out, and she glanced down before huffing.

“Yeah because it looks really good, and also is very comfy.” 

“Fashion statements aside,” he laughed, sitting at the end of her bed, a hand on her leg, “You ARE the General of the Minutemen. And titles and militia aside… you can still talk to me. Sora.” She gave him a look, but he was staring at the middle of the room, frowning. “I know how hard it is to be dealing with something alone. If it’s anything I can help with, or… maybe relate to, and help you get through it, I’d be more than happy to help.” 

“I don’t think you can relate to this,” she mumbled, setting a pillow on her face.

“You can always try me,” he chuckled. She peeked out from beneath the pillow to see him smiling broadly at her.

“You’re such a little ray of sunshine,” she huffed, nudging him with her foot. 

“Honestly, I was pretty gloomy before you came and helped turn everything around. I learned a lot of my optimism from you, G- ...Sora.” 

“That’s silly,” she smiled, crinkling her nose and sitting up. “Um… okay. It’s… kind of heavy? You sure you want me to just sort of lay all my baggage out like this?”

“Of course,” he nodded. “Anything to help a friend.” 

And she laid it all out. She told him about her life pre-war. She told him about Riku, and Shaun, and the trials they faced just to be a family together. She told him about the vault, and the man who took her child and killed her husband. He frowned, nodding at appropriate intervals, giving a polite “Hmm” or “Oh no” when the story seemed to take a turn for the worse. Finally she was done, and felt emotionally exhausted, slumping against the headboard.

“See?” she smiled. “It’s a bit unrelatable.” 

“Having a safe, comfortable life before some force came in and ruined it, taking everything - everyONE - you loved from you?” he started, arching an eyebrow. “Sora, that’s the most relatable story in the Commonwealth. Everyone has a story like that.” He paused, frowning. “Me especially.” 

Quincy.  _ Fuck _ , how had she forgotten Quincy?

“P-Preston, I’m sorry-”

“No,” he replied, shaking his head and forcing a smile. “It’s… over now. It’s done, in the past. And I guess… that’s my advice. Your husband seemed like a great, great man. He was definitely smart, and lucky to boot,” he laughed, patting her leg and she felt a blush creep up her neck and into her cheeks. “But you need… focus. Mine was on finding a safe place for me and the others - Jun and Marcy and Sturges and Mama Murphy. Yours has to be on finding your son. Finding Shaun.”

“He’s probably gone,” she whispered. “I don’t know how long I was in there after they took him, it- it could’ve been a hundred years ago, or two hundred, I don’t know, Preston.”

“Sora,” he smiled, meeting her eye. “You’re not the type to give up.” 

He was right. As soon as he said it, she felt… reinvigorated. She felt happy, and right, and like… everything made sense again. His brown eyes were sparkling with hope, and she slowly gave a nod, letting her frown melt away, back into her familiar grin. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m NOT the type to give up, am I?”

“One of the things I admire most about you, General,” he laughed. 

She brought herself up off the bed, Preston doing the same, and she threw her arms around him. He froze in surprise for a moment before carefully hugging her back, despite her tight bear hug around him. “Thank you,” she mumbled into his shoulder. “Really, Preston. For checking on me, for talking to me. It means a lot that you’d do this for me.”

“Of course, Sora,” he chuckled, one hand resting at the back of her head, fingers in her hair. “You’re one of my closest friends, I’d never let anything happen to you.” She held him for a while longer before slowly pulling away, kissing his cheek as she parted. 

“Diamond City,” she frowned, picking up her Pip-Boy and affixing it to her wrist.

“Huh?”

“That’s where Mama Murphy said I’d find my son, all those months ago. I didn’t believe her, I thought he was dead but…”

“We have to try,” Preston smiled.

“Yeah,” Sora grinned. “We sure do.”


End file.
